RE: Tamil Sri / Shri

From: Bala (bala@cse.mrt.ac.lk)
Date: Sat Nov 03 2007 - 10:34:34 CST

  • Next message: Bala: "Tamil Sri / Shri"

    Hi,
    I am attaching the 2 images again here(sr/shri). (I guess my previous email had those images with larger size). This is from the பேரகராதி - dictionary published on 1938.

    a) it's very true. Tamil always given priority for the phonetics not to the glyph/character. The known first grammar book in Tamil is Tholkappiyam (more than 2000 years old). In this book there is only one placed mentioned about the glyph/character. Which is saying the pure consonants will have the pulli. (the dot at the top of consonant). Other than that all phonetics.
    But these grammars well written in a way how the phonetics will get changed at each place. Tamil person by nature will use these phonetics without learning the grammar.
    For an example
    பாலா will be pronounced as "Bala"
    பார்வதி will be pronounced as "Parvathi"
    You can see the பா pronounced as Ba and Pa.
      
    Also Tamil does not have glyph/character for every phonetic sound. For an example ka, kha, ga, and gha sounds written using only by ka-க.
    Even for ha sound there is no letter in Tamil. It has borrowed the letter from Grantha script(ஹ). Even though the "kaham" is written as காகம் not காஹம். But it pronounced as "kaham"

    b)
    from my understanding the Grantha scripts influenced the Tamil, Malayalam and Sinhala scripts. Please see the following link for the further details.
    http://www.ancientscripts.com/sa_ws.html

    Problem
    -------------
    There are two sri/shri are been borrowed to the Tamil. We have text as well. Both sri / shri been used in same books.

    Thank you
    Kind Regards
    Bala

    -----Original Message-----
    From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On Behalf Of Mahesh T. Pai
    Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2007 9:01 PM
    To: 'Unicode Mailing List'; indic@unicode.org
    Subject: Re: Tamil Sri / Shri

    (A general remark; not just related to the quoted text alone)

    James Kass said on Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 08:20:02PM -0800,:

    > So, I'm wondering how the symbol which represents the god
    > Luxmi, benevolence, and/or good fortune is used in text.
    > You mention that the other dictionary also uses the same form.
    > Do the words listed in Pic1 ever get written using the symbol
    > at the top of Pic1?

    1. Background:-

    Two-three weeks back, I had taken a rather long holiday and was holed
    up at a remote place, far, far, away from technology.

    There were two native speakers of Tamil with me, and neither was a
    "student" of Tamil in any sense. They were just ordinary "users" of
    the language. One was based in Chennai (aka Madras), the other was at
    Avanashi, near Coimbatore, and hence was familiar with Malayalam.

    2. What I learned:-

    a. Tamil writing is very different from speaking. In several situations,
    Tamil does use same glyph/character to represent several sounds, and
    the user has to guess the correct pronunciation from the context. This
    is distinct from the Malayalam writing (according to the guy from
    Avanashi) where writing tends to follow the spoken sound as closely as
    possible."Vaamozhi is different from varamozhi" is the exact word he
    used.

    He gave illustrations also - "sivan", "laxmi" etc are written using
    the "sa" as in "sapta (seven)"; but the user has to pronounce it as in
    "shear". There are glyphs for the "sh" sound in Tamil; but that glyph
    is an 'invention' for writing Sanskrit words.

    b. Some kind of script reform has taken place within past 3-4
    decades. I was shown a book - "Bhajanavali", published from Chennai
    (Mylapore) by some organisation related to Satya Sai Baba. The word
    "bhajanavali" was printed differently on the cover page and
    inside. The "ii" marker was a bit like the "ii" marker in the images
    of both "Sri" above, and "na" glyph was a bit like Old script
    Malayalam "nu". 

    -- 
 Mahesh T. Pai <<>> http://paivakil.blogspot.com/
A: Because it fouls thef order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

    1938-page1.jpg
    1938-page2.jpg

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